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"When they allow a talk show host to play them like a two-dollar banjo, they demonstrate what kind of backbone they'll bring to the job later on, if we elect them. After they get elected will they continue to allow Jeff Crank to put a nickel in them and wind them up every Saturday morning?"

Barry Noreen, former columnist, Colorado Springs Gazette

"There's a lot of talent there" - Shannon Fowler

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Enviro-Social Experimentation and our Standard of Living

by The Lone Front Ranger

What is being done in the name of protecting the environment:

- This summer, the API cited a Congressional Budget Office study saying gasoline prices could rise by 77 cents a gallon under Cap and Trade, albeit not for several years.

- Myriad states have tried (with varying success) to charge consumers for every plastic or paper bag they use at the grocery store.

- The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) passed 175 pages of new regulations, which have moved Colorado from first to last as a state to do energy business in.Sure, prices will bring drilling back, just not to Colorado.

- Oh, and if you want to appeal their decision, the COGCC has also eliminated the right of the Colorado Division of Wildlife and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to hear appeals on decisions related to drilling permits.

- The federal Endangered Species Act leaves landowners in fear of finding a particular species of mouse or bird on their property.Discovery would restrict land usage, at best, or lead to “takings” at worst.

These are only 5 examples out of thousands.Think about the financial burden on American families at each level of government.Without these taxes and the hidden taxes of regulation, what might an American family be able to do with that extra money?Send their child to a private school?Give more to their place of worship? Be able to support a charity in a larger way than they have been able to?Save for their retirement?I trust private American citizens to choose the best place for their hard-earned money.

And this is all done in the name of Enviro-Social Experimentation.Getting us to be appropriately environmentally conscious citizens, to make us think that “protecting” the environment at any cost, is what is expected of us.That, and making sure that money continues to flow to government coffers.

Conservatives, by and large, are kind people, who want our environment to be clean, unpolluted and full of all the bounty of wildlife it can sustain.Conservative hunters and farmers see themselves as stewards of the land, with self-interest in maintaining the environment.After all, they hunt, fish, farm and live there.Anyone who believes that conservatives cannot be environmentally conscious, without the intervention of government, has not fully looked at the issue. I also trust these citizens, who have some skin in the game, to care for the land more than I trust government agencies to do so.

Note to government at all levels:I don’t want to be a part of your experiment.Stay off my property, and stay out of my wallet.